Let’s play the Texans Blame Game!

I always find the level of hysteria post Texans losses to be both astounding and nauseating. Traffic over here is always heavier when people are teeth gnashing and complaining, and we were about 6 inches from a loss on Sunday.

Anyhow, I mentioned last week how AOL Sports was going to do a feature on all the NFL teams that had a disappointing start, and who was to blame for it. My response was this entry, “Houston Texans: A Still Optimistic 2-6?”

If you haven’t read it, and you are a Texans fan, well then, I suggest that you do.

Blame schmame–I am a more forward-focused person by nature, though it is good to know the reasons behind things so you know how you got where you are now and you don’t repeatedly make the same mistakes.

Because the play of individual players this year has been fairly up and down, I decided to focus on the big picture issues. I primarily blamed the poor start on a very difficult early season schedule and Casserly/Capers for their lack of focus on player development and how they handled the draft and free agency.

The best part of writing about this was seeing some of the comments that were left, both there and on the Texans official message board. So, I figured for this entry, I would like to pull out some of the most thoughtful comments and put them in one place for posterity and further comment.

This is a little long, but I write this Chronicle blog for those who cannot get enough about their Texans. I salute you.

Kurt writes:

I think your comments, for the most part, sum things up for the Texans. The NFL definitely did crack down on the expansion draft abilities of the Texans given the success of the Jaguars and Panthers in the early years after their creation.

I don’t think any individual players are to blame. The choice of the original coaching staff is questionable. Capers demonstrated an inability to develop players once his initial veterans left the Panthers or got old. And that happened with the Texans, too, especially since they landed fewer quality veterans in our expansion draft.

Personally, I do not fault the Texans were at fault for picking Dom Capers as the original coach. He did have experience building a team from scratch, and most NFL types thought it was a good choice. It wasn’t like there were lots of great coaches beating the Texans’ doors down to coach an expansion franchise. His pairing with Chris Palmer was a little dubious. Palmer also had experience with expansion franchises, but philosophically you never got the sense that Capers conservative nature meshed well with Palmer’s choices on offense.

I am glad that Gary Kubiak wasn’t hired at that time. The purpose of an expansion coach is to get fired. With some good fortune, Kubiak is the kind of coach that you can envision staying in one place for a while. He isn’t a coach that is using the Texans job as a stepping stone for something else–he really wants this team to succeed.

Running Man says:

Personally I think Casserly brought in reasonable talent and the coaching staff did a horrible job of developing it. Or shoud I say they didn’t develop it at all?

There are only a couple of players I can think of that were possibly better after spending time under Capers’ staff. Most were markedly worse.

I don’t buy into the argument that since few of our cut players are in the league, they were therefore bad players. I think the coaches made them worse; had they gone to a well coached team that can develop rookies – like today’s Texans – many of these players would still be contributing to our team or to someone else. The coaches squandered talent.

Their were some questionable picks in the draft to be sure, but all teams have those.

I agree with a lot of what you are saying here. There are so few players in the league that are so good that they can succeed no matter what the coaching is or what scheme they are playing in or who the surrounding cast is.

The offensive scheme (or scheme that was truly offensive) that they put on the field in 2005 was an abomination. Some of the assistant coaching hires were non-good. And, with both the draft and free agency, the acquisitions didn’t appear to be chosen with one set philosophy in mind.

On offense, the philosophy was a mishmash of Palmer v. Capers/Pendry. On defense, they were running a 3-4, but Casserly felt uncomfortable projecting players for a 3-4.

And also, it appeared as though Capers hampered development by giving jobs to players, without really creating an atmosphere of competition for those positions. And keeping young promising players on the bench, even after it was clear that the season was hosed. It made it more difficult to evaluate those players without seeing them playing in games.

Mark in Cypress suggests:

Accountability was non-existent with the Capers regime. Carr was indeed badly coached, babied and never was subjected to a consistent offensive philosophy. The tight end became extinct. Our best offensive game last year was when Carr called the plays. What does that say about the offensive coordinator? QB coaches were horrible. Who remembers Greg Roman? The defense – well, no pass rush and we could not hold a lead. Much of that was having little talent and no real leadership.

Do I blame McNair? Not really. Most NFL minds respected his choice of Capers and Casserly. For the first three years, it appeared we were right on track. But inferior coaching by Capers and staff and inferior players drafted by Casserly caught up with us in 2005. We are really back where we started in year one.

Pretty much spot on as usual.

Kip says:

Second half of this year will be the telling part of Kubiaks first year, if he can get his style of coaching to sink in(it does seem to be).

Agreed. For a team with a losing record, they are terribly optimistic.

Texanmike writes:

I think one thing that gets overlooked by fans when talking about the struggles of the Texans is the fact that they haven’t valued veteran leadership at all. Look at Dunta’s rookie season. With Glenn there to coach him through the year he had an unbelievable year as a rookie. Then you get rid of him and Dunta is left out in the cold with no real veteran to look to for advice. Now if you look at the secondary (which is arguably the worst unit outside of the RB corps on the team) and between the 4 starters they have only 10 years of combined experience. Then look at Sharper and Foreman both let go.

Yes, I mentioned the lack of veteran leadership in my original post. Keeping the aging veterans wasn’t necessarily the way to go because of injury concerns and salary cap considerations, but you have to replace talent with like talent, and that wasn’t happening.

infantrycak has a good point relevant to this:

I thought Sharper’s performance had dropped off considerably. Coupled with injury concerns and a huge cap number I understood the Texans letting him go if they couldn’t renegotiate his contract. Hindsight in particular shows that judgment was correct as he missed half of the next season with a knee injury and is now out of football.

I thought it was a mistake to let Aaron Glenn go particularly without trying to renegotiate his contract but either way IMO he should have been kept. He clearly demonstrated the leadership and mentoring on the sidelines that people assume all veterans contribute when clearly not everyone does. Pretty telling that he has contributed to a much better D since leaving here.

TheOgre says:

The biggest deficiency(ies) on this team at the end of last year was the lack of talent in the trenches. I think we made some strides in that direction, but still have work to do.

True that. The Texan linemen are oldish or youngish, with few in the middle.

prostock101 says:

Blame? I suppose you could hang the Capers/Casserly duo for their poor performance. I really felt going into this season that it was a complete restart not unlike a new franchise and my only expectations were to see progress. Well, I’ve seen great progress and I’m please with the direction that Kubiak has the team in. Could we be better than 2-6 at this point? Some fans don’t seem to realize that losing just one or two of your standout players on either side of the ball can make a huge difference. For example, add a healthy Dom Davis, Spencer, and Mathis to the offense and maybe we’re 4-4. Or say we lost Ryans and Robinson in preseason to injuries. We might be 0-8. It’s just a very fine line that all teams have to deal with and the loss of any playmaker makes a huge difference. Note Kubiak’s lament at the early loss of Spencer. He knows what a difference one player can have.

Is poor football management a hangable offense in Texas?

Injuries are inevitable in the NFL, and this is where good trainers and a whooooole lot of luck come into play in the success of a team.

Double Barrel writes:

Win as a team, lose as a team. There are way too many glaring inconsistencies with this team to pinpoint one aspect as the reason for losing this year.

As TC mentioned, implementing a new system with a whole lot of new players can take awhile to gel and find success. If I had to “blame” someone, I think the previous regime/GM left a lasting legacy of mediocrity and bad personnel decisions that have hurt us this year more than anything else. Just look at how many of their players have been cut from the team.

That serves as a great conclusion to this entry. Anything to add? Elaborate? Or would you prefer to be more forward looking?

***Cannon said police became suspicious of Weary while patrolling the South Main and South Loop area about 1 p.m., where they saw him in a Chevrolet Impala SS. Cannon said Weary “exhibited suspicious behavior” and kept “looking at officers on several occasions.” Police decided to follow the vehicle.***

What’s going on HPD…Drivers can’t look at you now??

This is total BULL! If I was Fred I’d be “very agitated” and “slow to comply” also … especially if I’m minding my own business and HPD is harrassing me FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Evidently Weary wasn’t even told WHY he had been stopped, which seems to be a reasonable concern for him to have considering the circumstances.

I wonder what’s to come of this story…and I wonder if it would have been different had Mike Flanagan or Steve McKinney been driving???

All the while there was likely a real crime being committed somewhere nearby.

We don’t pay our police officers enough money to put up with the non-complying idiots. Memo to those with half a brain. When the guy with the gun asks you politely to give him some identification, show some respect and provide it. He is doing his job which law-abiding citizens want him to do. If you would rather be lit up brighter than the front lawn Christmas decorations, then be our guest. I bet Weary will be just a little nicer next time.

Sorry for the radio call-in pun, but longtime reader, first time blogger, therefore apologies if this is a little wordy. PSL holder since Day 1, and although out of state and lots of traveling aside I make it a point to make about 80% of the home games, and watch them via TIVO when their on the road.

I’ll get to Carr in a moment, but I want to make a fundamental point, which Texans’ Fans tend to lose sight of sometimes. Which is OK, because we are fans and we want to see success on the field, and when we don’t see success we start pointing fingers at what/who we perceive as the culprit. My point is the BUILDING OF A WINNING FRANCHISE, and Ill say with much certainty, that I applaud Bob McNair in the steps that he is taking up to this point. Therefore, he is absolutely NOT TO BLAME. The Texans are in the top 5 in NFL franchise value, with superior marketing. The way he runs the operation is first-class. The facilities are awesome.

I applauded his hires of Capers, Palmer and Casserly when we started. Why? It seemed logical at the time. Both coaches where part of expansion teams. Casserly had a “good resume” as was reported by several media outlets, who also opined at the time the hire was good. I think a majority of us would agree. We where getting football people in with experience for a rookie owner. Four years later, even through some trying times, McNair can say he knows a thing or two. He has new football people in place that are hungry for success. I applaud his move with Kubiak and the new regime, and I have no doubt in my mind that we will be successful with them.

I was ok with the supplemental draft and our initial draft of Carr. I never anticipated Tony Boselli not playing…EVER for us. I blame this fact, as the root of our OL failures the first 2 years of our existence, and its maintained a somewhat lingering effect. I also didn’t appreciate the fact that Boselli was so caught up in trying to overcome his injury that he failed to mentor the younger big men then. Which I thought would have been invaluable. Maybe he was bitter at the Jags who let him go, who knows.

Our drafting has been good, not great, but good. I cannot recall one draft, where media outlets scored the Texans lower than a B or C grade. Not that these grades are valid scientific indicators, but when they come out they are just as good as anything else we get at the time. Pitts, Faggins, AJ, Peek, Domanick (pre injury), Dunta, Mathis. This year, I would have loved to have Young, wasn’t sold on all the hype of Bush (one player DOES NOT make a difference) and my position was to trade down. Regardless, this last draft has turned out to be arguably our best. I can’t say the same for Cleveland as an expansion franchise or even Detroit or Washington (post Casserly), and those teams have been around for a while. Therefore, our drafting history can’t be all to blame.

Seattle and Tampa, expansion teams in the late 70′s, where doormats for years. Carolina and Jacksonville where contending darlings after only a couple of years, due to favorable conditions with free agency at the time. I don’t think we can argue that in today’s NFL, free agency, the salary cap and other factors have contributed to the factor of the “rate of return” in seeing a franchise thrive so quickly. I can however put a little blame here, where McNair was fighting a somewhat uphill battle with the NFL and its owners’ own resentment of bringing in McNair into their fraternity vs. some schmo from LA which is what they where REALLY after. Regardless, I feel we are above and beyond better off than the Cleveland Browns are as a franchise at this stage.

Hindsight is 20/20, and looking back, we could have done better with some management decisions, coaches, schemes, other draft picks, etc. Which brings me back to Carr. Is he the right QB for this franchise? My gut tells me no. But, we needed to start somewhere, therefore I can’t throw Carr under the bus, as many fans have. We have him now, and Kubiak deserves the chance to coach him, and if Kubiak says that Carr can do it, then I believe him, even though I disagree. He knows Quarterbacks. You can see it in Carr’s “progress” this year compared to the past. His completion % is up, and so is his vision down the field. Does he fumble? Yes, way too much. Does he stare down receivers? I believe he has regressed in this area, because I didn’t see it this bad in year 2 & 3. I think with all this much-needed coaching he’s getting (ala Mario) he’s over-thinking his coverage reads, thus staring his receivers too much to ensure he’s throwing in the right spot. In summary, does he make mistakes? Of course. So did Bradshaw, Elway & Steve Young in their early years, and all 3 are HOFers.

My initial thought was 4-5 years in order to be successful, that is of course if we where successful through drafts, free agency, coaching and schemes. Well, with the Boselli mess, giving up picks for Babin as a first rounder, a questionable Travis Johnson pick (when Derrick Johnson was on the table) and recently the bone-headed Buchanan trade, we have digressed about a year maybe two. It takes time, but I see this franchise making considerable progress by next year. We are talking about a 53-man roster, coaching philosophies, chemistry that takes time to build, not to mention when you go through free agency, salary cap, injuries, it’s hard to see success so easily in the NFL. Hell, the NFL wouldn’t be as successful as it is without the parity. Furthermore, if there’s other blame to throw around, we should look in the mirror. We do live in a society that breeds the “what have you done for me lately” attitude. But, I digress as that is our reality. As opposed to not having the NFL in Houston, I’d rather be throwing things at my TV, pointing & cursing at players as they jog through the tunnel after every ridiculous, mistake-prone, no heart playing half and of course reading and blogging as to who in the world is to blame.

We also don’t pay police officers to harrass innocent citizens just because they ‘fit a certain profile’ (ie. They’re Black and driving a luxury automobile). From all accounts, Fred is one of the most upstanding individuals on the team. I’d bet there won’t be a next time, and actually there probably shouldn’t have been a first time.

Unless you’ve been in the situation, you probably wouldn’t understand what it feels like to be the subject of unwarranted suspiscion. Can you tell me what it feels like to be stopped by the police for DWB (Driving While Black)?? Well I can tell you, it’s one of the more demoralizing things that happens to young Black males in today’s society all too often. And it always leaves you with one thought – If I was White, I wouldn’t have even had to deal with that BS.

I dont beleive it has anything to do with black, white, brown, tan or cowboy pink. If you come out of the car with an attitude you could be in trouble. You have to respect the authority of the badge or you might take a trip downtown.

Puhleeese. Stop crying about the “black” being taken advantage of by “Whitey”. If you were stopped, it was because you broke the law. Just because you are an overpaid professional football player, it does not mean you are above the laws that I have to obey. And if you have an attitude and put your hands on a police officer, you are going down EVERY time. Weary is lucky they didn’t turn him into a pinata. I have seen “Blacks” scream profiling at 9:30 at night. With the window tint now, you can’t tell who is in the car at night, but let the offender be African-American, and he runs the stop sign, then he was only stopped because he was profiled and black. Ridiculous. Sterotyping white police officers is just as ignorant as stereotyping black drivers.

WA WA WA. I would rather have cops being extra diligent on innocents than letting crimes transpire and not caring that a driver keeps looking back at you several times. What if that wasn’t Weary? What if it was some sort of child molester with bodies in the trunk? He sees a cop car, gets nervous and acts suspicious? What does the officer do? Let this trash go by, because he is afraid of what the public might think that he is racial profiling and doesn’t want to get into trouble? Or, follow his instincts, like a true professional, and “INVESTIGATE” why this driver was acting suspicious. Ron- were you riding shotgun with Weary when this went down? Do you know exactly what was said? What tone of voice did Weary AND the cop(s) used?